Green isn’t just environmentally friendly. It’s also friendly to your firm’s budget.
“It’s not easy being green.” – Kermit the Frog
Despite Kermit’s lament, it’s a lot easier to “be green” than you may expect – especially with your printers, copiers, and other office equipment. While copiers and printers can contribute to the digital and physical landfills, when it comes to industries that make lots of copies (like the legal industry), they can also be key components within a company-wide green initiative.
Many companies are also investing in corporate environmental sustainability programs. You may be interested in the Law Firm Sustainability Network, which promotes best practices, knowledge-sharing, key performance indicators and more within the legal industry.
It’s good to be nice to the environment and look to sustainability efforts for corporate responsibility. Here are a few tips to get you started on the path to a greener business.
Many people probably roll their eyes and may think, “This is business, why should we worry about hugging trees” when it comes to the idea of being environmentally conscious in the world of business. But, when you mention the fact that going green (from an environmental standpoint) will not only be a good reflection on your brand, it will also add some “green” to your bottom line – most people perk up and become a little more interested. Understandably of course – this still is business after all.
Even if you're not interested in the positive environmental impacts, most of these tips will help you save money and/or become more productive too. Whether you're interested in the environment, dollars and cents, or both – keep reading.
Let’s start off with printing and going green. When you do print, consider the following:
Of course, you should recycle your paper. But did you realize you should also recycle your equipment itself as well as your toner cartridges?
Regarding your copiers and multifunctional printers, with a lease or rental agreement, we will pick up the equipment (and hopefully we'll be replacing that equipment with new as we continue our relationship!). If you own the equipment itself, we encourage you to have it removed to a recycling center that can break down complicated digital equipment, like computers and your copier, into component parts rather than dumping the entire device into a landfill.
On a related note, you will ALWAYS want to be sure that the copier's hard drive is wiped or digitally shredded as a matter of course for security and privacy issues before sending away for recycling (the hard drive on your copier is identical to the hard drive on a laptop or PC). (Click here to read about this potential security hole, Why Digital Copiers Are a Security Time Bomb.)
Also, recycling toner cartridges rather than throwing them away can add up to less waste in the landfill.
A few other thoughts on stretching out your green touch:
I hope you’ll take these tips and help both the environment and your wallet.
We’re serious about the potential of green initiatives. Click here to read about the Datamax Greenback Proposition.